Genesis

I owe my religion to the circumstances of my birth: the only reason, the true one, for which I have been brought up as a Christian, is that I was born in a Christian family. To allege a reason different from that one is only ideology, i.e. means of coercion. “The circumstances of my birth”, this reason also applies to my nationality, the color of my skin, my gender and, why not, for the mankind, even the animal kingdom to which I belong.

Here is also the only reason for which I do not “defend” Christianity “against” Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, etc, or French against Foreigners, White against Blacks or Yellows, etc, men against women, human against other animal species, and animals against plants and minerals.

I was invited from childhood to read the Bible. This vast pillar of justice instilled the poison of fear into me, the fear of the guilty whose unwillingness destines to be punished after his death.

It is because I wanted to exorcize this fear which haunted me that I returned like a prodigal son to the temple and there, one fine day, as some of us had been gathering to study Genesis, first book of the Bible, a “miracle” occurred.

This miracle is an almost innocent verse of the Genesis, the 15. of the 2. chapter, of which all the versions I could find in bookshops come down to the one of King James (Authorized King James Version, Oxford world's classics):

“

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to plough (or cultivate) it and to keep it.

All these translations say the same thing: God put Adam in the Eden to employ him there as a gardener and as a guard. I.e. God created the man to make of him his servant, his employee.

But in this day of grace, I have been acquainted with the (french) translation André Chouraqui (Desclée de Brouwer) had made of that verse, and without which it would have continued, while remaining unperceived, to achieve its guilty work in my subconscious. Here is the translation (of the translation) by André Chouraqui:

“

IHVH-Adonai Elohims takes the man of glebe and puts him into the garden of Eden, to serve him and to keep him.

And so is the creation put back in the right order: God created the man, not to make his slave of him, bus as a being responsible for his creation (even if the creature has required of him to be created), he puts himself at his service and assures him of his protection.

No more Mr Bogeyman who watches for the least mistake to clamp down on me. Nothing but love, nothing but generosity. And I experienced, maybe for the first time, an immense feeling of joy and gratitude.

Then, as if they had awaited this moment only to leap to the light and to confirm me in my discovery, higgledy-piggledy reappeared fragments of the Gospels (from now on all the extracts are translated from the version of André Chouraqui):

“

Stare at the birds of the sky: they do not sow, do not reap, do not garner into barns. But your Father of the skys feeds them.(Matthew 6, 26)
Notice the amaryllis of the fields, how they grow without toiling nor spinning. Yet I tell you: even Shelomo in all his glory was not dressed like one of them.(Matthew 6, 28-29)

“

And I tell you: Ask, it will be given to you. Seek, you will find. Knock, it will be open to you. Yes, anyone who asks receives; anyone who seeks finds; to anyone who knocks it is open.
What father among you whom his son asks for a fish gives him, instead of a fish, a snake? Or, when he asks him for an egg, gives him a scorpion?
If you thus, who are bad, know how to give nice gifts to your children, how much more the Father of the skys gives the sacred breath to those who ask him. (Luke 11, 9-13)

Nevertheless I must say that I was the only one who got enthusiastic that day and that my partners quite simply evaded, even scorned the question (and the one who raised it). So that I did not trust them anymore and, consequently, had to invent my way all alone.

All alone? No, since I had from now on as a friend a benevolent “god”. A god? No, not this face too restrictive, too exclusive, too pleasing to human pride. No, not a god, but the whole universe for partner, and for eternity.